


no sleep for the sick

by gendernoncompliant



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Episode: s05e03 Spotlight, Established Relationship, Extended Scene, M/M, Missing Scene, Prompt Fill, Sad, canon adjacent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23209489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendernoncompliant/pseuds/gendernoncompliant
Summary: They’ve been building to this all day. Duke knew it, and he tried his damnedest to bury it—to balm the wound with bright smiles and easy laughter and bad lies. But he saw it coming, in the end. Dwight’s always seen right through him.Hell, it’s something Duke’s always liked about him.Ain’t that a bitch.
Relationships: Duke Crocker/Dwight Hendrickson
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18





	no sleep for the sick

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crownedcarl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedcarl/gifts).



> Another prompt fill for the absolutely stunning CrownedCarl. The prompt was “if you cared about me, you wouldn’t do this” but I didn’t take it QUITE word-for-word [it’s close enough]. This scene takes place in S5E3, when Dwight asks Duke about where Nathan and Mara have gone—however, in an AU where Duke and Dwight have been together for some time. The timeline doesn't QUITE match up with canon but oh well.
> 
> *Title from the song "The Hound and the Fox" by I The Mighty

“You’re lying to me.”

Duke’s heart drops like a stone. Anxiety claws up the back of his arms, lifting the hairs on the nape of his neck. It’s a feeling just to the left of nausea: a grating, guilty, swollen thing. He doesn’t recognize the coldness in Dwight’s voice—hasn’t heard him sound like that since the early days, when the two of them were more enemies than friends, all push and no give.

Two weeks ago, Dwight held him by the waist and pressed him up against his kitchen counter and whispered a soft, important _I’d pull you outta hell if I had to. I’d climb down and get you back myself._ Hours before that, a particularly nasty trouble had damn near put Duke in the ground, and Dwight had kept himself calm like he always did. But his hands shook for hours. His hands shook until he had the chance to put them on Duke and _prove_ Duke was still standing.

“I don’t know where he is, Squatch. I told you.” Duke insists. He tries to tell himself that it’s not technically a lie. Nathan didn’t _tell_ him where he was going. It doesn’t mean Duke doesn’t _know_.

Dwight just stares back at him, his expression tight. Duke tries to hold out, to hold his gaze, to look innocent or honest or whatever the fuck he _isn’t_ , right now.

Just a couple days ago, if you’d asked him whether he would ever be on the receiving end of that kind of fury from Dwight, he’d have said, _not in a million years_. He’d have said, _depends—did I eat his last protein, granola whatever?_

It’s not funny, now.

Finally, Duke caves. Turning away, he croaks a wounded, “Don’t look at me like that.”

This time yesterday, they were tangled together on Dwight’s couch, kissing while the TV played in the background. Now, Duke would give anything to be somewhere else.

“Where is he, Duke?”

Duke can’t do this. He can’t pick between the love he built and the love he lost. And he knows. He knows he lost Audrey a long time ago. He knows he lost Nathan even longer ago than that. They’ve only ever been a pipe dream, but he can’t _stop_.

Duke doesn’t think Nathan’s right, about Audrey still being in there—underneath Mara. That’s the worst part of it all. That’s the part he’s most ashamed of. He knows, in his gut, that Audrey’s gone. And he let Nathan run off with Mara anyway, even when it put everyone else in danger. Duke doesn’t know if it counts as pity or mercy or wishful thinking, but he knows it was stupid. He knows it was the wrong choice.

Dwight keeps giving him a chance to put it right, and he can’t take it.

Duke’s mouth goes dry when he murmurs, “Can’t tell you that, Dwight.”

“Why the hell not?” Dwight barks, startling Duke with his ferocity: a pot finally boiling over.

They’ve been building to this all day. Duke knew it, and he tried his damnedest to bury it—to balm the wound with bright smiles and easy laughter and bad lies. But he saw it coming, in the end. Dwight’s always seen right through him.

Hell, it’s something Duke’s always liked about him.

Ain’t that a bitch.

“The Guard’s gonna kill her,” Duke pushes back, something desperate creeping in. He can’t. They _can’t_. His heart jackrabbits in his chest. She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s already gone but he can’t lose her again.

Dwight looks at him with something just off-center of actual rage. It’s closer to exasperation, like Duke’s a child who doesn’t understand no. Like he’s trying to be patient, but he’s losing his temper. “She created the troubles, Duke! She did all of this!”

The not-nausea climbs up Duke’s throat, sitting heavy on the back of his tongue. “Don’t pretend like you know what’s gonna happen,” he blurts, words tumbling out in a rush. “What if killing her makes it _worse_?”

“They doomed _all_ of us, Duke. Why are you still protecting them?” As soon as the question’s out of his mouth, Dwight’s whole expression changes. It drops, ringing with a revelation Duke isn’t privy to. “You know what,” Dwight says, his voice gone tight and quiet. “Don’t answer that.”

Dread creeps up Duke’s spine like a rising tide. It could drown him, if he let it. It still just might. He opens his mouth, but for once he’s shocked into silence—too afraid of giving himself away, of _confessing_ to something, even when he isn’t guilty of a crime.

Dwight leans forward, pressing his fists against the desk, staring down at the scattered paperwork so he doesn’t have to look Duke in the eye. It aches in a way that’s horrible and bottomless.

“I can live with being second choice,” Dwight murmurs, almost to himself, “But I’m not letting you tank this whole town because you—”

Duke’s got no right to his self-righteousness. He knows that somewhere deep and awful, but he hides behind it anyways—his voice sharp and daring when he asks, “Because I what?”

The moment of quiet fractures on Dwight’s frustrated, “Because you can’t get over your stupid crush long enough to _think_!”

It catches Duke off guard, lands like a blow. He stares, doe-eyed and startled, an ugly understanding starting to bloom in his chest when he asks, “My what?”

He buried those feelings. He kept himself away, didn’t let himself look at that _want_. But Dwight knows him. Too well, apparently. Better than Duke thought.

“Don’t play stupid,” Dwight sighs, more resigned than angry. “It’s a bad look on you.”

Duke clings to denial because it’s all he has left. “So, what?” He argues, “Just because I don’t want them to die, you think that I—”

Dwight interrupts him with an irritated growl, snapping, “I know you’re in love with them, Duke! It’s not a secret.”

“I’m in love with _you_!” And that, _that_ isn’t a lie. Duke knows that more surely than he knows anything. A compass always points North, the sun rises every morning, and Duke loves him.

Dwight recoils like he’s been hit. An unnatural quiet settles between them. It occurs to Duke too late that it’s the first time he’s ever said the words. It shouldn’t have been like this—wielded like a weapon in an argument he was always going to lose. Loving Dwight should never have been a counterpoint. But he can’t take the words back. So, he waits—even when he feels caught in a freefall with no ending.

“If you loved me,” Dwight says finally, careful and measured. Duke knows him well enough by now to know that the meticulously constructed calm hides a hurt that runs so deep, Dwight can’t look directly at it. Duke did that, and he doesn’t know how to fix it.

Or—

He knows exactly how to fix it and he can’t.

Won’t.

Won’t. Duke’s not stupid enough to pretend there isn’t a difference.

“If you loved me,” Dwight says, starting again when the words get caught on the way out, “You wouldn’t do this.”

“Audrey is our best shot at ending the troubles—”

“Audrey’s _dead_. The sooner you get a grip on that, the better. Fuck, Duke, I thought you already _had_!”

Duke thought he had, too. He’d told Nathan as much, just a few hours ago. Shame is an ugly thing. His voice comes out muted when he says, “I trust Nathan.”

“Yeah,” Dwight answers, nodding—his expression hurt and distant. “That’s the whole problem, isn’t it?”

Duke can’t shake the feeling that he’s losing him. Dwight doesn’t move, but somehow he gets further away with each passing second. He crosses the space between them, reaching for Dwight’s arm, desperate for Dwight to understand.

But Dwight yanks out of the way inches before Duke makes contact. “Don’t,” he says, voice low.

Duke’s heart jumps into his mouth.

Meeting his gaze, Dwight keeps a very tight reign on himself when he says, “What you and Nathan and Audrey have? I don’t want you to love me like that.”

Duke’s throat clicks on a dry swallow. He can’t quite catch his breath. The ground opens up underneath him, but he doesn’t fall through. Just hovers in the moment before the disaster.

“If it was me who had to die—if it was me,” Duke forces out, “Would you do it?”

“Yes.”

Dwight looks at Duke with a softness that nearly undoes him.

Duke almost startles when Dwight reaches out and cradles his face in one calloused hand. He rubs his thumb along the crest of Dukes cheek, an agonizingly gentle motion given the fight they’ve been having. Duke doesn’t know what to do with it. He feels like a scale set to tip.

Dwight’s voice comes out quiet and hurt when he confesses, “It’d haunt me the rest of my fuckin’ days. But I would. I can’t put you before this entire town. Even if I want to.”

It’s the right answer, Duke thinks. The noble one.

It still hurts.

Dwight doesn’t look away. He holds Duke with the same tenderness as before. But he doesn’t step any closer, just yet. His voice level, calm, almost gentle, he asks, “Tell me where he is.” Something cracks—something small. Something important. “Please.”

Duke squeezes his eyes closed as if that act alone would make it all go away. “I can’t.”

Eyes closed, he doesn’t see Dwight shift closer, only feels the press of lips against his forehead. Some invisible line’s been crossed. He made a choice, and there’s no coming back from it, and Duke wants to kick and scream and _beg_ Dwight to reconsider. But it won’t do any good. He swallows around the lump in his throat and leans into the touch.

“Okay,” Dwight sighs—too gentle. Too final. “Okay, Duke.”


End file.
